Bureaucratic Politics, State Capacity, and Taiwan's Automobile Industrial Policy

In recent years an increasing number of social scientists have attempted to explain Taiwan's success. Relying on neoclassical or modernization theory, many analysts have focused on indigenous factors to explain Taiwan's phenomenal and social transformation. Other observers, utilizing the developmental approach or paradigm, have linked Taiwan's development to the structure of the international arena. More specifically, several economists have credibly demonstrated how impediments to growth were overcome and major obstacles to and social equality were successfully removed over the course of the past several decades (Galenson, 1979; Kuo, 1983; Ranis, 1978; Myers, 1984). Still others have examined the ideological basis informing the proselytizers of Taiwan's economic miracle and the political context in which socioeconomic transformation occurred; here the focus has been on the ideology of the technocrats and the state-economy-society relations in which development was embedded (Gregor, Chang, and Zimmerman, 1981; Johnson, 1981). Finally, there are those who have conceptualized Taiwan's development in terms of dependency and world system theories; included in this group are students who have declared Taiwan a paradox or a deviant